Emergency Preparedness includes planning and training and taking proactive action to be ready to do what needs to be done to ensure survival and safety, in case of an unplanned emergency or disaster. Emergency Preparedness is important for families and communities as well as organizations.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) focuses on taking proactive steps to ensure the viability of a business during and after a time of unplanned emergency or disaster. This a goes above and beyond IT disaster recovery, as the focus of IT disaster recovery is to restore IT systems and data but does not address other aspects of the business.

The bottom line is that without Emergency Preparedness for people, families and communities, effective Business Continuity Planning is not possible. If people are faced with serious challenges threatening their survival and/or their family, these resources are not available to support BCP. For the vast majority of human resources (i.e. people / employees) supporting a business, their first commitment will be to their families, households and communities. The human issues relating to

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery should never be overlooked. These must be proactively addressed as part of a comprehensive strategy to mitigate risks of unforeseen events.To ensure the viability of your BCP, it is critical that the human factors are considered in the form of Emergency Planning for the people, families and communities potentially impacted.